Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2101
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, August 25, 1889
“And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, has He quickened together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses.” Colossians 2:13.
THE teaching of this verse is much the same as that in preceding verses—but the Apostle does not hesitate to dwell again and again upon the important matters of quickening and forgiveness. These lie in the foundation. Ministers of Christ cannot too often go over the essential points—their hearers cannot too often hear vital Truths of God. Our frail memories and dull understandings require line upon line, precept upon precept, in reference to fundamental Truths— our apprehension of them is far too feeble, and can never be too vivid.
To find instances of the work of God in quickening souls and in pardoning sins, Paul does not look far afield. In the text he says, “And you,” and, according to the Revised Version, he repeats the word further on, and the passage runs thus, “You, being dead through your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, you, I say, did He quicken together with Him.” He points personally to the saints at Colossi. We are not about to consider a prophecy to be fulfilled in the millennium, neither are we speaking of matters which concern the unknown dwellers in the moon.
No. The theme belongs to you. To you, I say, if indeed you are the people of God. You are specimens of the Divine Work—you has He quickened, you has He pardoned. It is profitable for us to be engaged upon matters which concern us. I shall speak to you of those things which I have tasted and handled of the good Word of Life, and it is my firm belief that, to the most of you, these matters are familiar in your mouths as household words. If not, I grieve over you. Let none of us be content unless the works of the Holy Spirit are manifest in us. What good is it to me if another man receive life and pardon, if I am cast to death and lie under condemnation?
Press forward, my Beloved, to a personal enjoyment of these chief blessings of the Covenant of Grace—life in Jesus, forgiveness through His blood. Let every part of the sermon have a finger pointed at yourselves. Hear it speak to you, even to you.
In the text we have the conjunction of two things—quickening and forgiveness. We will consider these things in connection with each other. Their order it may be difficult to lay down—in the text they are described as if they were the same thing. Which comes first, the impartation of the new life, or the blotting out of sin? Is not pardon first? Does God pardon a dead man? How can He give life, which is the proof of pardon, to the man who is not forgiven? On the other hand, if a man has not spiritual life sufficient to make him feel his guilt, how can he cry for pardon? And if it is unsought, how shall it be received?
A man may be spiritually alive so as to be groaning under the pollution and the burden of sin, and yet he may not have received, by faith, the remission of sins. In the order of our experience, the reception of life comes before the enjoyment of pardon. We are made to live spiritually and so we are made to repent, to confess, to believe, and to receive forgiveness. First, the life which sighs under sin, and then the life which sings concerning pardon. Misery is first felt—and then mercy is received.
Following the line of experience, we shall notice, concerning the favored ones of God, first, what they were—“You, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh.” Secondly, we shall note what has been done in them— “Has He quickened together with Him.” And then, thirdly, what He has done for them—“Having forgiven you all trespasses.” May the Holy Spirit lead us into these Truths of God and give us the life of God, and the rest of faith!
I. First, then, consider WHAT THEY WERE. Beloved, they were all by nature children of wrath, even as others. There is no distinction in the condition of natural men before the Law. We all fell in Adam. We are all gone out of the
way and have all become unprofitable. Any difference which now exists has been made by Divine Grace. But by nature we are all in the same condemnation and all tainted by the same depravity.
Where were we when the Lord first looked on us? Answer—We were dead according to the sentence of the Law. The Lord had said, “In the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die.” And Adam did die the moment that he ate of the forbidden fruit—and his posterity died in him. What is natural death? It is the separation of the body from the soul, which is its life. What is spiritual death? It is the separation of the soul from God, who is its life. It had been the very life of Adam to be united to God. And when he lost his union of heart with God, his spirit underwent a dreadful death.